


Heart to Heart

by Aldebaran



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 03:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15855714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aldebaran/pseuds/Aldebaran
Summary: Zelda really needs to talk to Elisa after she involves Zelda in the theft of the most sensitive asset ever housed at the Occam Aerospace Research Center.  Zelda's point of view of the heist, the aftermath, and the changing relationship between Elisa and the creature. Or: How Zelda Learns To Stop Worrying and Love the Fishman





	1. Jacob's Ladder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bwayfan25](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwayfan25/gifts).



> For Bwayfan25, with much gratitude for your wonderful stories, especially "Lost and Found".
> 
> Bwayfan25's prompt asked for any general Elisasset cuteness and fluff. There’s some cuteness here, I hope, and some fluff, and a whole lot of other stuff, from Zelda’s point of view. Elisa/Creature if you squint. By the end, Zelda might be starting to squint just a little…
> 
> Many thanks to Riffler for suggestions on this work!

Zelda pauses across the street from the Orpheum as the bus pulls away, spewing exhaust.  She tells herself it’s just so she won’t have to walk through that stinking cloud, but the truth is she’s caught sight of the two iron staircases leading up to Elisa’s apartment.  Her feet are telling her to just stay here and get on the next bus that comes by, rather than climb up either one of those long sets of steps.  With, mind you, not just one overfull shopping tote, but burdened with two.  One of them holds Elisa’s things, which Zelda pulled hastily from Elisa’s locker—was it really just this morning?  Just a few hours ago that her best friend committed the crime of the century and pulled her right along into it?    

Well, Zelda thinks, maybe she pulled herself in, a bit, to start.  It was one thing, though, to punch a friend’s timecard, trying to spare her some trouble.  She could have just punched the card and left, gone on home.  None of her business.  It wasn’t like Elisa had two words for her anyway, over the last several days.

But she’d had been acting so oddly when Zelda saw her at the end of their shift.  Elisa had come into the locker room with a bucket and a rag and leaned against the lockers, looking pale, strained, upset.  And all Zelda could think in that moment was that Elisa would have to put that bucket and rag away and that was going to take time and Zelda’s feet hurt and she just wanted to get home. If only she’d really pressed Elisa about what was wrong, what Elisa was upset about.  Maybe she could have stopped this whole thing.

Then Zelda wouldn’t have to be here, on this hard sidewalk with her feet hurting, and oh, also possibly a federal fugitive, with a bag of clothes in one hand and a bag of fish in the other, looking at a staircase as long as Jacob’s ladder.  And without the promise of heaven at the top to boot.  Far from it.  At the top waits only something she doesn’t want to believe has happened and conversations she doesn’t really want to have. 

And yet—here she is.  With fish, no less.  Fish for that creature, that was at the heart of all this trouble. The creature and Elisa there at the center of it all.  Waiting up there with answers.

All Zelda has to do is choose to cross that street. Climb those stairs.  Her good sense though, tells her to leave, fish and all, to not get any more involved in this then she already is.

But her heart, bruised though it is by Elisa’s true silence of the last days, gripped with terror on the loading dock this morning and after, ablaze with anger at what Elisa’s pulled her into—her heart tells her she needs to see Elisa, has to know the truth.  Has to know if the friendship she risked everything for still exists for both of them.

Zelda turns, checking her surroundings as she’s been doing since before she made it out of Occam earlier today.  No one out of place.  No one looking at her as she stands at the bus stop, with her bags. No one seeming to hear her good sense and her heart at odds with each other, with her good sense starting to win because her heart is just so tired. 

Then her soul, high above the fray, closer to heaven, chimes in and urges her upward too, up those stairs and down the hall, because Zelda, God help her, has to see that creature again.  See if what she saw on the loading dock, what she felt, was really true or just her imagination.  And don’t that just beat all, feeling that pull herself now, after what she felt the day the creature came into their lives?

The minute that water-filled tank came rolling into the lab that day, looking strange even for Occam, Zelda knew to stay away from it.  And what did Elisa do?  Headed straight for it.  Like she just had to.  Like she couldn’t help herself.  Both of them hustled out of there by Mr. Fleming and Zelda hoping no one had seen what Elisa had done.  Certain Elisa had been scared enough to never do it again.

Zelda had been sure the only real trouble was safely confined to the next day, when whatever it was that arrived in that tank got loose and attacked Strickland, ripped him and tore him, and left behind an ocean of blood for Elisa and Zelda to clean off the lab floor.  That was the last time Zelda went in there, in that lab where something awful happened, where something awful lurked.  She’d never even seen the thing in the tank.  Not until this morning, when it rose out of that laundry cart on the loading dock.

Zelda thought the trouble started and ended with the attack in the lab.  But now she knows, it started that very first day, when Elisa went where she shouldn’t have, right up to that glass tank and laid her hands on it.  And it hasn’t ended yet.  God only knows what would happen to them all now, after what Elisa had gone and done.     

The staircase seems to get longer the more Zelda looks at it. Her good sense, her heart and her soul are quiet, all talked out.  It’s her feet that are talking now.  And it’s not just her feet that are tired, it’s her spirit.  The emotions of the morning have wrung her out like wet laundry through a mangle.  The blaze of anger when she’d found Elisa pushing that cart on the loading dock.  A twist of something unnameable when she’d seen Giles, Elisa’s friend and hers, in the van.  Cold fear as she had to make a run for it with Dr. Hoffstetler—and why was Dr. Hoffstetler there in the first place?  Terror when the lights went out in the whole facility.  The knife of anguish at the sound of gunshots, not knowing if Elisa was alive or dead.  And having to keep it all inside, to put on a calm face as she got herself out of Occam.  She had to act as if nothing was wrong, not stray even the tiniest bit from her routine in case she was being watched.  Which meant she had to stay on the bus all the way home when all she wanted to do was get off at the next stop and call Elisa, to find out if she was okay.  If she was alive.

Dread had clutched at her heart all the long way home, cold fear frozen like ice over a hot core of anger.  Zelda made for the phone the minute she was home.  Brewster wasn’t even up yet, but would be soon, that man’s nose for breakfast like a bloodhound on the scent.  God help him if he interrupted her just then.

Giles had answered, sounding scared and uncertain and Zelda’s heart had started to beat again.  The fear thawed, spoke first; Zelda had to know—were they all right?  Was Elisa all right?  Anger burst forth like lava.  What the hell was Elisa thinking, stealing that creature from the lab and getting her involved!  But mostly—was Elisa all right? 

Giles had quickly assured her they were fine, stuttering as he translated for Elisa, his voice rough with emotion.    _Elisa asks, can you come?  Can you please come?  She needs to talk with you.  And oh—can you stop by the fish market and bring fish?  A lot of fish?_    A pause from Giles and then a conspiratorial whisper:  _make sure you’re not followed._

Make sure she was not followed?  There was no one on God’s green earth crazy enough to follow a nondescript colored woman from her insignificant home in her just barely respectable neighborhood onto the bus and down to the fish market at 7:30 am in the morning.  Doesn’t mean she hadn’t checked though, or changed buses a few times, the whole way wearing that false calm face while inside anger heated and burned away the last bit of fear about Elisa’s well-being. 

The memory of that anger starts it flaring again there on the sidewalk across from the Orpheum.  It rushes through her blood, scalds the soles of her sore feet. It flicks a flame at the bond of friendship, which heats, but holds fast.  It singes the thread of her soul’s pull to the creature, that astounding being she’d witnessed amidst the terror of the morning, revealing not thread at all, but a strong cable spun of pure wonder.

It’s only good sense that burns to ash in a second.  Well, she’s been ignoring good sense since the minute she put her hands on that laundry cart, knowing in her heart what was inside it.

Zelda starts across the street, looking right, left, behind. Thinking--calm down, now.  Calm down.

That’s what her daddy would say, calm down.  He was always telling her that, when she was younger.  Zelda has had a temper all her life and her daddy lived in fear of it.  Not in fear of her temper, but in fear of what her temper might bring her to.  It doesn’t do no good, he’d warn.  It’ll only get in you in trouble, beat up, in jail or worse.  He had that anger too, he’d said.  But it didn’t do to show that anger, not when you were a colored person in a white man’s world.  Zelda breathes deep as she crosses the street, pushes anger down and away where it usually lives, tries to hang on to purer motives of friendship and wonder.  She thought she didn’t have any emotions left after this morning.  Guess she was wrong.

Zelda knows a lot of her anger is at herself.  Her mind keeps circling around, always coming back to why hadn’t she just talked to Elisa, asked her what was going on, stopped this crazy scheme.  Oh, she’d asked Elisa if she was okay in that locker room when she came in with the bucket, looking so pale and strange.  But she hadn’t really meant it.  She hadn’t even given Elisa time to answer, just brushed by her, telling her to hurry up, instead of really caring that Elisa seemed upset.  Truth was, she’d been more hurt than she realized by Elisa’s standoffish behavior of the last several days. 

She’d waited, though, waited by the time clock for Elisa to arrive, waited and thought.  Elisa had looked not just upset, but scared.  Scared and nervous.  Wasn’t it just like Yolanda, to choose that moment to be solicitous, urging Zelda to get in the elevator, holding the damn thing for her?  It would be a cold day in hell before Zelda did anything Yolanda told her to.  The elevator left without her.  She’d punched Elisa’s card out. She couldn’t explain why, just a feeling that something was wrong, had been wrong for a long time, and was coming to a head.

So she’d gone looking for Elisa, back down to the locker room.  Elisa’s locker still had her clothes in it, her coat, her purse, her good shoes in her green shoe bag.  Zelda could have just left then.  Not been involved in anything more serious than punching a timecard for a friend.  But…Elisa was a friend.  Her best friend, no matter that she’d been acting strange for days. 

Zelda’s first thought then had been the lab.  That lab, T-4, the one with the blood, and the fingers, and the thing in the water that attracted Elisa like a moth to a flame.  But Zelda couldn’t go there, not in street clothes.  To be honest, she didn’t want to go there anyway, hadn’t set foot in T-4 since that awful, bloody day last week.  Elisa had been the one doing the cleaning there, and Zelda grateful for it.  Come to think of it, that had been around the time that things started to change between them.  Not sharing lunch, Elisa with a faraway look in her eyes most of the time.  Coming out of that lab far more often than the cleaning schedule warranted.  Zelda had noticed.  But Elisa never seemed to be around to ask.

Still standing in front of Elisa’s locker, not willing or able really, to go to T-4, Zelda had thought back to the last time they’d shared any meaningful time together.  It had been on the loading dock.  Elisa seldom lingered on the dock, usually just heading back into Occam after the laundry carts were loaded onto the waiting vans, covering for Zelda while Zelda stuck around for a smoke and some gossip with Duane and Lou and whoever else was hiding out in the blind spot on a given day. 

But that day, Elisa had stayed.  She’d even had a smoke.  And she had looked at the pushed-up camera with a dawning smile on her face. And just a couple of days ago, Zelda had seen Elisa, peeping out the service door on the dock, glancing up at that same security camera, slipping back into the corridor without seeming to notice Zelda watching her.  The dock then.  She’d thought to check the dock.  Maybe someone there had seen Elisa.

Zelda is across the street now, moving towards the nearer of the two staircases.  The lights from the Orpheum paint the sidewalk in red and gold.  A sign promises air conditioning inside.  That sounds good to Zelda.  It was hot work, trying not to be followed.

Maybe she should just go into the theater, enjoy the air conditioning and then go home.  Never climb up those iron stairs.  But the fish, the fish wrapped in newspaper in the bag in her hand.  If it wasn’t for Elisa asking her to bring fish, Zelda could believe that the creature wasn’t really up there.  That Elisa and Giles had taken him where he belonged, to the river or to the ocean.  Just anywhere but upstairs in her best friend’s apartment.  But the fish in the bag in her hand tells her—he’s there.  They brought him home. 

And Lord have mercy, she has to go and see.  See the creature.  And Elisa. 

She starts up the stairs to the apartments above, lifting the totes a bit so they don’t hit the steps, string handles biting into her hands.  Each step one moment closer to finding out just what had really happened this morning on the dock.

She’d known the truth the second she’d seen Elisa come onto the dock, pushing that laundry cart.  Elisa was strong for her size, Zelda knew that, and she could tell that cart was heavy just by the way Elisa leaned into it.  Carts weren’t usually that heavy, the towels in them used but not soaking wet.  This cart was heavy, bulging oddly at the sides, and were the sides…moving?   

Zelda had read once that intuition was nothing more than the brain putting together things that a person didn’t even realize they had noticed, puzzle pieces that suddenly snapped together in their mind.  This was like that.  One look at that cart and Zelda knew what was in it, what Elisa had done, what she intended to do.  The creature was in that cart and Elisa intended to set it free.  Zelda tried to stop her, she really did.  But Elisa was determined, and Elisa was her friend, and then Dr. Hoffstetler was in on it too and it was too late to do anything but help and pray that the dock camera was pointed up high enough to miss them all, pointed straight to heaven, please Lord please.

Zelda stops to rest on a landing partway up the stairs.  The red door leading to Elisa and the truth is not far now.  Maybe God’s mercy for Zelda is going to be a heart attack right on these stairs.  She’s just about level with the “P” in the Orpheum sign, and close enough she can hear the snap and buzz of the lights as they shift. No wonder Elisa is so strong, up and down these steps all the time.  And in those heels she loves so much no less!  And Giles…these stairs at his age?  It’s hard to believe he manages it. 

Zelda hadn’t believed it either when she’d seen it was Giles who was driving the van that backed up to the dock.  He looked different with that bad hairpiece on, but she wasn’t crazy despite the madness around her, it was clearly Giles, Elisa’s neighbor and dear friend.  She knew Giles, like she thought she’d known Elisa.   How could he possibly be here, involved in this? 

And Dr. Hoffstetler was back from wherever he had rushed off to, working with Elisa to clear heavy wet towels from the laundry cart.  What was Dr. Hoffstetler doing here? 

What was this thing in the cart, that had attacked Strickland and that had seemingly brought educated people, good people to lose their reason and commit this terrible dangerous crime?  To risk their livelihood and their lives?  To sweep Zelda up into this insanity?

Then all her thoughts and questions fled and Zelda had become entirely an irrational thing. 

Because the towels were moving, and suddenly rising before her, glistening, damp, finned and scaly, was the creature.  She’d expected a beast, the stuff of nightmares, ravening and hungry for fingers.  A monster from the deep.  A primitive cunning animal, who had somehow tricked all these fine people into doing its bidding. 

The being who rose before her was none of these things.  Like nothing she ever expected, so close, from her vantage point of behind and to its right.  It was graceful and shimmering, scales an artful mosaic, vivid with stripes and deeper layers of soft color that shifted, liquid and blending, changing as it moved.  Delicate frills at its neck rippled in lacy waves as though underwater, stroked by an unseen current.  An elegant folded ivory fan of spines curved down the center of a muscular back. 

It stood incongruously in the cart, gentle and calm despite surroundings and events that must be completely strange to it, not cowed, numb and dull, but radiating curiosity, cocking its head at Giles as it studied him intently, its voice a soft chirring, greeting and inquiring.

She had an impression of power, broad shoulders, tapered waist, and a far too human and fine behind.  She tore her eyes away, found Giles’ face, saw his expression change from fear to awe and wonder.  She saw Dr. Hoffstetler frozen in dreamy fascination.  And she saw Elisa, smiling between the creature and Giles, as though hoping the two of them would think well of one another.  The moment seemed to stretch into forever, the dingy dock at Occam transformed into a strange wonderland, until Dr. Hoffstetler and the threat of capture got them all moving again.

The buzz of the Orpheum’s lights brings Zelda back to the stairs outside the theater.  Waiting here, catching breath she doesn’t really need despite the cigarettes, isn’t going to change what she will find behind the red door above.  She’d seen part of the truth that set these events in motion already when Elisa and Giles aided the creature out of the cart.  The impression of power crumbled as the creature made its way into the van, weak, drained and gasping, accepting Elisa’s help, turning to sit with its back against her.  She’d seen his face then, through the rear window, the high forehead, the wide gold eyes, the generous mouth.  The openness and innocence.  She was no scientist, but you’d have to be a fool to miss the intelligence in that face and those eyes, the humanity in the inhuman features. She should be afraid of him, appalled by him, but she found her fear dissolving, drifting away under his golden gaze.    

Her last and most haunting image was the creature, cradled in Elisa’s arms, as though they’d sat that way many times before and were just fine with it all.  Her friend, holding him like Mary holding Jesus down from the cross, her pale hands tiny against his broad chest.  And Zelda realized, as the van roared away, that she now thought of this alien creature as him, an “it” no longer.

Zelda is on the top stair now.  One more step and she’ll be on the final landing, then through the red door.  She tries to hold on to the wonder she’d felt, and the glimmer of understanding that had sparked in that magical moment on the dock, but the anger and hurt that surround it are too great.  She breathes not from stair climbing but in search of calm, finding instead questions that lead her away from stillness into turmoil again.   What was Elisa thinking?  How could she do this crazy thing?  And worst of all…how could Elisa not tell her? 

Zelda stands there, on the top stair, trying to figure out how she could feel so hurt and betrayed by Elisa not telling her, not trusting her, while at the very same time wishing with all her heart that she never had gotten involved with Elisa’s scheme at all, that she didn’t care what happened to her.  Only…that isn’t really true, is it?

If she didn’t care about Elisa, she would never have punched that time card, and there it would be, telling a tale for anyone with half a brain to read.  And she would never have grabbed the edge of that laundry cart and pulled with all her might, there on the loading dock.  Hell, she wouldn’t have been on that loading dock.   If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t have gone back to the locker room after, to clear out Elisa’s street clothes, purse and shoe bag from her locker and take them out of Occam in a spare grocery tote, prepared to pass it off as the mending she often did for cash on the side.  Because she knew immediately that anyone with any smarts whatsoever would do a thorough search, including all the lockers, looking for evidence, for anything out of the ordinary.  Someone leaving their clothes and shoes and house keys behind with that person nowhere to be found in Occam would definitely stand out.   And Strickland might be repulsive, but he sure wasn’t stupid.

So, Zelda thinks, she cares.  She does.  But she can still choose not to go through that red door.  One last chance in all this long morning.  She can just leave the bags there on the landing and hightail it home.  Watch _As the World Turns_ and _The Guiding Light_ with Brewster.  Relish their silence for once.  Pretend that it’s peace.

She hesitates, thinking.  Sets down one bag.  Steps onto the landing and reaches for the red door.  She has to know.  She may be beginning to understand what Elisa was thinking, a little bit, as she visualizes the creature revealed to her on the dock.  How weak he had been.  How in need of help.  She knows the strength of Elisa’s compassion.  Zelda does care and she just has to know.   All of it.

The door pops open before she can even touch it, and there Giles is, peering out, looking right and left, urging her inside.  Zelda picks up the second bag and steps into the darkened hallway.  Out of the light into the darkness, willingly, she thinks.  God alone knew what was right and what was wrong anymore and He hadn’t seen fit to share that with her yet.

Giles is speaking.  Fast and nervous and somehow electric, as though he’s had too much coffee.  “She’s down here.  She’s—they’re down—in the apartment.  Her apartment.  She sent me to get you, we saw you from the window.  He—he tends to wake up when she leaves and he needs to sleep, after what he’s been through.  Elisa—she’s been out for groceries twice already and he wakes up every time, looking for her and it takes forever to get him settled back down.”  He realizes how fast he’s talking, slows down, reaching for the bags.  “Here, let me help you with that.” 

He takes the bag with Elisa’s clothes in it.  Zelda switches the bag with the fish to her empty hand, clenching the other, feeling it tingle back to life.  She should say something.  She likes Giles, very much, always has.  He’s warm and smart and funny and he has been as good a friend to Elisa and to her as anyone could ever ask.  So why does she feel so cold towards him at this moment?

Giles reads something in her gaze, her manner.  “I know,” he says.  “It’s a lot.  A lot to take in.  I can’t believe it, that we did it.  We really did it!”  He pauses, stopping briefly in the hall, looking down at her.  “Elisa didn’t tell me you’d be there.”

And that’s it.  That’s the reason.  Giles knew, all along and Elisa hadn’t seen fit to tell her. 

Zelda answers, “Well, you’re not alone, that’s for sure.  She didn’t tell me either.”

“Oh,” says Giles.  “Oh.” 

There’s nothing else he can find to say as they make their way down the hall to Elisa’s apartment. 

The door is slightly ajar and before they get there, Elisa steps out, into the hallway.  She looks at Zelda and it seems as though she’s about to cry or to laugh.  Maybe both at once.  Her hands move.

_Thank you for coming! I’m so glad you’re here!_

The relief that Zelda feels, seeing her there, okay, shining with life like she always does, greeting her as a friend, washes through her, taking with it the fact that her hands hurt, that her feet hurt, that it is near 9 o’clock and she hasn’t eaten since 3 am and oh, yes, that her whole damn world got turned upside down just a few hours ago.  By her.  By Elisa.  

Zelda doesn’t know whether to hug her or strangle her and she hears herself saying, “We need to talk.  But I have been on every bus in this city since 7:30 this morning, and I need to use the bathroom.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Girl Talk

Giles, wisely, has moved through the door into Elisa’s apartment.

Elisa turns to him, and asks, _Can you stay with him again?  Watch him?_

Zelda hears Giles’ cordial “Of course, my dear” even as she starts to steam.  Come all this way and not even be asked in? 

Elisa turns back, apology in her eyes, her face, her posture as she signs.  _He’s in the bathroom.  My bathroom.  In the tub.  We need to use Giles’ bathroom._

Zelda stands as if turned to a pillar of salt.  That huge creature, in a bathtub?  This cannot be real, cannot be actually happening.  This whole morning must be a dream.

Elisa steps towards her, takes the bag of fish from her hand, turns the knob on Giles’ door.  Zelda finds herself moving forward and follows Elisa into Giles’ apartment.  She’s been here before, many times, for dinner and a movie downstairs, or cards.  Wine and the company of people who talk to her, who listen to her.  People who care about her and about each other.  The memories of those times, the sameness of the place, cats stretching in greeting, cools some of her fire.  No otherworldly creatures in here at least.  Just cats.  Lots of cats.

Giles’ place is cluttered as always but very clean, Zelda knows.  Elisa helps there.  She says it’s to pay Giles back for all the times he has used his van to take her on errands or shopping, but Zelda is sure Elisa would do it even if Giles rode the bus like they do.  She’s just that way. 

Clutter like this would drive Brewster crazy, not that he’d lift a finger to do anything about it.  It doesn’t bother Zelda in the slightest because it all has a purpose, a reason for being here.  An educated man, an artist, lives here and works here, creating his art.  This front area holds his tools, a drafting table that always has some fascinating work in progress, his reference books, his paints and easel.  Just like her sewing spot in her own house, which Brewster complains about, frequently.  Zelda uses everything there, often, and it just makes sense to leave things out, to hand, where she can find them.  It’s not like Brewster looks that way much anyway, in his lounger staring at the television for hours. 

Zelda loves her house.  She’s worked hard for it.  Things she loves are there, her sewing machine, the clothes she’s designed and sewn for herself.  Curtains and linens and dishes of her choosing.  The birds she has decorated the walls and shelves with, so beautiful and free to fly.  So it’s funny that this cluttered apartment, filled with things chosen by someone else, representing a life and experience so vastly different from her own, should feel so much like home to her.

Elisa clearly feels at home here too.  She closes the door behind Zelda, moves to the refrigerator, puts the bag of fish inside.  She turns to Zelda, apologetic again.  _Mind if I go first, while you get your coat off?_

Zelda nods and shrugs off her coat.  She places it on the coat tree in front of her, where Giles keeps his coats and jackets, hats and umbrellas.  Her eyes light on a familiar bust in the window, that now sports the bad hairpiece she’d seen on Giles this morning.  There are a few drawings taped to his drawing table, quick charcoal sketches—of the creature.  She closes her eyes, shakes her head.  Drawing him already.  And leaving the drawings in plain sight.  She supposes drawings are at least easy to hide quickly, unlike a six and a half foot tall fishman lounging in the bathtub.

Elisa is back and Zelda heads to the bathroom.  Zelda focuses on details, to anchor this dreamlike morning to reality.  The bathroom is tidy and spartan.  Two kinds of soap, Ivory and Lava.  She guesses Giles gets paint on his hands often.  She chooses the Ivory, white suds against her dark fingers.  Looks in the mirror to make sure she’s still real.  Closes her eyes again, wishing she could disappear.  Opens them.  Nope, still here.  And Elisa is waiting.

Elisa sits on the couch, nearest to the television, a cat between her and the armrest.  Her feet are tucked together in that way she has, one foot turning easily more inward than Zelda could ever manage even with concentrated effort.  Even seated, she radiates the same unsettled energy that animated Giles.  Zelda understands part of it, the jitters left by receding fear, and waning anxiety.  But both of them have an elation, an air of victory, that Zelda does not, cannot share.  And neither of them have had to deal with the witch’s brew of dread and anger that has been roiling inside her, gripping her heart.  Zelda hears her father’s voice urging calm as she settles on the other end of the couch. 

Elisa’s hands are wringing together, eloquent in their own way.  She doesn’t know where to begin.  Neither does Zelda.  And the hurt of that strangeness, that distance between the two of them, settles on her tired spirit again.  Zelda will not have this conversation in anger.  She hasn’t got the energy left.

“Elisa,” she hears herself saying.  “Can you just start with why?  Why did you do this?”

Elisa begins slowly, uncertain.  _I—He—..._

Elisa’s hands still, her chin dropping, hair swinging forward to hide her features.  When she lifts her eyes to Zelda again, her face is open, like it used to be, like it should be.  Even Zelda, used to every emotion spelled out on Elisa’s expressive face, cannot take in everything that flickers over her features in that moment.  Elisa’s lips tremble, her eyes tear as her hands shape into signs again.  _It’s just after 9 am.  They were going to kill him eight hours from now.  And I just…I just couldn’t let that happen._

“Kill him?  Today?”   Zelda feels her eyes widen.  “Honey, you are going to have to start way farther back than that.  That first day you were so curious about…him.  You moved over to that tank when they wheeled it in like you just had to know what was inside.  With all those scientists around.  With Mr. Fleming right there!  Then that creature got agitated and we got thrown out of there so fast.  I thought you’d have sense enough to stay away later.  Especially after what it did to Strickland!”

Zelda sees Elisa’s eyes narrow and realizes she has called the creature “it” again.  “Elisa, don’t you shoot those daggers at me, after what you have put me through!  I don’t know him like you clearly do.  All I know is roars coming out of a tank full of water and bloody fingers on the lab floor!  And that’s on you! You…,” Zelda stops.  The anger is coming back and she has to stop, breathe deep. And how could she reconcile those actions of the creature with the almost supernatural feeling of peace she’d felt when seeing him on the dock?  As though an angel of the Lord had whispered to her:  Fear not.

Elisa’s head has ducked again and she raises a sorrowful face to Zelda.  Zelda tries again.  “Just help me, honey.  Help me understand.  We both of us need to just calm down.”

Elisa nods, breathes deep herself.  _That first day, you are right, I was curious.  I went up to the tank…and touched it.  That’s when his hand came up and struck the glass.  I was startled, scared.   I didn’t understand then…_  

Elisa pauses, starts again.  _I tried to ask you in the corridor, did you see it, it was a hand, a human hand but so large.  But you didn’t want to talk about it._   She hastily adds, probably at something she sees in Zelda’s face, _And I understand!  You were right!  We shouldn’t be talking about it, there in the hall.  And I knew that you hadn’t seen.  And then I wasn’t sure that I had.  And that’s when I felt… that I had to see, to know for sure.  I wanted to go back later that day, but there wasn’t a chance.  Maybe I would have gotten over it, if the other thing hadn’t happened the next day._

Elisa shifts on the couch and pulls at the collar of her dark sweater.  The large orange and white cat behind her stands and jumps down to the ground, finds a patch of sun to call his own.  Zelda is not sure which cat it is, she never can remember all their names.  She’s not even certain how many cats there are.  “What? What happened the next day?”

Elisa’s mouth quirks in a half smile that pulls at Zelda’s heart.  _I know you remember this.  When Strickland introduced himself to us in the men’s room?_

Zelda rolls her eyes.  “Lord, I will never forget that as long as I live.  The arrogance of the man.  I wish we could tell Mr. Fleming about that, but you know he’d never believe us.  What happened, besides that horrible thing he did, peeing in front of us like we were nothing to him?”

Elisa’s half smile disappears. _He had that thing with him, that…_   She has to fingerspell the word “prod.” Which is a good thing, thinks Zelda, as she wouldn’t recognize that sign anyway, it’s not one that she has learned in her years with Elisa.  _He set it on the sink while he, you know.  When he picked it up and left, there was blood on the sink.  Red blood.  I know now what I suspected then._  

Zelda leans forward, rapt.  Elisa meets her gaze.  Her brows are drawn together, her whole face speaking of sorrow.  _Strickland was using it to torture him.  The creature.  Later that day, remember, that was when Strickland’s fingers got bitten off.  Zelda, the creature didn’t attack Strickland because he is vicious.  He bit him because he was being tortured._

Zelda closes her eyes.  Her whole memory of these events is shifting, like a kaleidoscope turning to make a new picture out of the same colored pieces.  Not an attack, but self defense?  She looks at Elisa again.  “What do you mean, you suspected?”

_There’s nothing else, human or otherwise, that Strickland could have been using that prod on._ _Nothing with red blood, like ours._ Elisa’s face is stern.  _When I saw the creature, after the attack, he was bleeding.  Red blood, Zelda.  And something happened later that confirms that Strickland was torturing him, regularly, with that prod._

“Wait, what do you mean you saw the creature after the attack?  I was there, I didn’t see him.”

Elisa has the grace to look sheepish. _When you left, to get Mr. Fleming, after we found the fingers.  I went up to the tank.   The creature was in there.  He came toward me.  I could see he was bleeding.  He was so calm floating there, looking at me, as curious about me as I was about him_.  Elisa’s face softens, her mouth curving in a fond smile. 

Zelda has the sudden feeling that there is a whole lot she doesn’t know.  “Elisa…how many times did you go in there?  How many times did you see…him?”

Elisa shakes her head, shrugs.  Lord help us all, Zelda thinks, she truly does not remember how many times and that means a lot.  A lot of times.  Although why this should surprise her, when there was a fishman just next door, in the bathtub, she wasn’t sure.  “Okay.  Okay.  When was the first time, the first time you went in there?”

_The day after that.  I brought him food.  An egg.  He was out of the tank, in the pool._

Within herself, Zelda finds some small reserve of outrage that has not yet been tapped.  “Out of the tank?  What were you thinking, going in there, when you saw what he did to Strickland!”

Elisa pauses.  She is trying, Zelda knows, trying to explain things that maybe she herself does not fully understand. Just as Zelda cannot reconcile her knowledge of the creature’s very real danger with the peace she herself had felt in that brief moment on the loading dock. 

Elisa begins, signs coming slowly, then more certainly.    _I just felt I should.  To see if he was okay.  There was a big chain, moving in the water.  It was clear that even though he could swim in the pool, he was chained in some way.  When he stood up, he had a big collar around his neck.  The chain was attached to that.  So I felt it must be safe._

Zelda just knows, in that way that they have between them, that there is something Elisa is not telling her.  Maybe several somethings.  She says as much to Elisa with a look.

Elisa quirks her mouth, nods.  _When he stood up, he could reach me where I was.  He could take the egg out of my hand._

Zelda’s eyes close again.  Lord Jesus.  Elisa shakes her.  Elisa can’t talk if Zelda can’t see her.

_Yes, I should have been scared.  But I wasn’t.  I offered him the egg.  Too fast, it scared him and he roared at me.  Then I was scared, a little.  I stepped back, moved slow.  Things calmed down.  I set the egg where he could reach it.  And he took it, and disappeared under the water.  But Zelda—_

Elisa’s eyes are shining.  She can scarcely contain her joy.  Zelda is almost afraid to hear what comes next.

_Before he took it, I made the sign for egg.  And the next time he wanted an egg, he made the sign himself.  He is smart, Zelda.  He knows several signs now.  He asks me to teach him words.  Dr. Hoffstetler says there is no reason to believe he is any less intelligent than you or me._

Oh my word.  “And just when did you have this long chat with Dr. Hoffstetler?”

Elisa’s eyes dim a little.  _Well, that was just today.  In the lab.  When I…when I was breaking the creature out.  I was sure there would be a key to unlock the collar somewhere in the lab, if there wasn’t some way to open it with just my hands.  But before I could look for it, Dr. Hoffstetler stepped out from where he was hiding.  He gave me the key.  He told me some things while he was helping me get the creature in the laundry cart._

Wait, wait, wait.  This is getting more complicated than _As the World Turns_.  “What do you mean, he was hiding?  I thought he was in on this with you!”

Elisa shakes her head, guileless. _No, he just showed up in the middle of things.  And he helped us, Giles and me.  And the creature.  He turned out the lights.  Giles said something about him taking care of the guard at the gate, who was just about to figure out Giles’ ID card was fake._

At the mention of Giles, Zelda feels that coldness again.  Giles knew and Zelda had been left out in the cold.  Out in the cold and in the dark.  They will get to that, later.

“So you are telling me that you did not plan this with Dr. Hoffstetler?  That he just out of the blue showed up right when you needed him?  That without him…”  Zelda stops.  Her chill goes completely to ice.  Without him, the plan would have failed.  The creature would still be locked in Occam, awaiting death at 5 o’clock.  All his mysteries to die with him.  And Giles, and Elisa, would be…

She finds herself moving forward, pulling Elisa into a hug so fierce that it threatens to crack ribs, Elisa’s arms slipping about her just as strongly.  Zelda says through tears, “I could have lost you.  Lost you forever and I would have never even known why.”  Zelda can feel Elisa shaking with soundless sobs of her own.

The tears slow, another emotional onslaught in a day that has already been too much for both of them. 

Zelda pulls back, fishes in the bosom of her brown plaid dress for a tissue.  Elisa wipes her own face on the sleeve of her sweater, pulls her velvet headband back into place with the other.

_I’m sorry,_ Elisa signs when her hands are free.  _I’m so sorry._

Zelda can’t go there just yet.  The dam is cracking, but there’s still a lot of water pent up behind it.  Somewhere, there’s a sense of relief that even though all the forces of the federal government could descend on them at any moment, she and Elisa might just be right with one another soon.   “I know, honey.  I know you are.”  Elisa holds out a hand.  Zelda presses a clean tissue into it.  Elisa blows her nose while Zelda continues. “But this Dr. Hoffstetler thing.  What does that all mean?  Did he say anything more?”

Elisa shakes her head.  _There was not much time.  He told me that he had seen us before, the creature and me, talking and …_   Elisa pauses, her cheeks turning as red as her nose.  _Dancing.  He saw us dancing to music one day.  I didn’t know anyone was there, that anyone had ever seen us at all._ At Zelda’s look, she clarifies.  Although, Zelda thinks, it hardly makes things any clearer.  _The creature likes music.  When he was in the tank, I would play music and dance.  And he would spin in the water, dancing too.  Dr. Hoffstetler told me that was the day he realized the creature was intelligent and that he was communicating with me.  Only with me._

Zelda tries to bring some logic to a clearly illogical situation.  “Well, why didn’t he, I don’t know, research it or something?  Do some experiments, involve you in figuring this creature out somehow?”

Elisa’s brow furrows.  _I don’t know.  I know that he doesn’t like Strickland, that he disagrees with what Strickland has been doing.  But I really don’t know what he’s up to, beyond saving the creature from death.  He did ask me something strange, when he found me today._  

Zelda can tell things, as bad as they are, are about to get worse.  She raises her eyebrows in question.

_He said, who do you work for?  I couldn’t ask him what he meant.  He doesn’t understand sign language and there was no time for me to write him anything._

Worse, for sure.  Secrets and lies.  This big thing they are all involved in is getting bigger by the minute.  The more she asks, the more she finds out.  But she has to know everything, they all do, if they are going to have any chance at all.  Zelda forces herself to continue.  She can tell there is something Elisa has not told her.  Something more, she reminds herself, than well, just everything else she has already found out today.  “Well, it sounded like you had a nice long talk.  All that stuff about Strickland and him disagreeing.”

Elisa’s face becomes very serious.  _No, that was before._   She stops signing abruptly.

“When, honey?  I thought you said today was the first time he talked to you at length?”

_It was the first time.  The other time…I overheard._   Elisa is clearly upset by the memory.  Zelda waits.  _I went in to the lab, to see the creature.  Only he wasn’t in the pool.  Or the tank_.  Elisa’s breathing comes faster.  She lifts her chin sharply. _He was chained, Zelda.  Chained on his knees on the floor.  He was covered in blood, open wounds.  And he was crying.  It was Strickland. Strickland did it.  The prod was on the chair._

Zelda feels her own breath come faster, for more reasons than the horror Elisa describes.  “What do you mean, Elisa?  Strickland saw you come into the lab, when you weren’t supposed to be there?”  This could change everything, if Strickland knows of Elisa’s visits.

_No, he wasn’t there.  But he came back.  I was trapped there.  I had to leave the creature, chained on the floor and bleeding.  Leave him and hide in the lab. I had his blood on my hands.  I could hear him crying for me.  And I heard Strickland torturing him._

Elisa is sobbing.  If she weren’t mute, she wouldn’t be able to speak.  But her hands continue, her fingers forming the awful words.  _He tortured him, Zelda.  He was screaming in agony. Strickland shocked him with that prod, again and again while he screamed.   Dr. Hoffstetler and some general came in then.  Dr. Hoffstetler put a stop to it._

Zelda can stand no more.  She pulls Elisa into a gentle embrace, stilling her hands, stopping the words.  She rocks her gently, murmurs words of comfort.  “It’s okay, honey.  It’s okay.  He’s safe now.  You’ve saved him.  He’s here, he’s safe.” 

Chained and tortured, for no reason other than for Strickland to revel in his control.  Like he had controlled and humiliated her and Elisa in the bathroom.  Chained and tortured.  Enslaved.  As her people had been enslaved, as they still were, just not as overtly.  Hoses and dogs, instead of whips and chains.  Except every now and then, if you went somewhere you shouldn’t go, did something someone thought you had no God-given right to be doing.  Sometimes colored people who did that never came back.  She can’t think about that now. 

Even as she comforts her friend, a new puzzle piece has made the situation even bigger.  A general, at Occam, involved in all this.  Her mind is reeling.  Generals, military agendas, secrets and lies.  This is too big.  But it’s too late now.

It’s not like returning a pair of shoes to Hecht’s on Howard Street, she thinks, trying to return a fishman to a government facility and say sorry, this was a mistake.  Not that she could go to Hecht’s.  Elisa could, but not Zelda.  Well, technically Zelda could, but it was only in the last few years and it was uncomfortable for them both, Elisa and her.  Not hoses and dogs, but looks and whispers.  Service unavailable, sizes out of stock.  Quiet little cuts at her dignity and personhood.  Elisa, an outsider due to her muteness, pushed further outside when seen shopping with a colored woman on Howard Street.  So they both went to Gutman’s off Howard, where Zelda has been welcome for years. 

What is she thinking, shoes and shopping, like life will ever return to normal?  They are in it now for sure.  She puts the general and the mystery of Dr. Hoffstetler and his cryptic comments into the pile of things she can’t think about right now. 

She has been holding Elisa the whole time, as she cries it all out.  From what Elisa has told her, there hadn’t been any time to cry.  Only time to try the unthinkable, the impossible, to save the creature’s life.  This creature who has become so important to her, in ways Zelda is only beginning to understand.

Zelda feels Elisa’s head against her shoulder, her thick hair soft under Zelda’s hand.  The warm feeling in her chest from being able to comfort her friend is wonderful.  It’s almost enough to make her not ask the question she needs to ask.  Almost.

Elisa pulls away, dashes tears from her eyes.  _That’s when I found out they were going to kill him.  Cut him open.  Dissect him._   She fingerspells the awful word, with sharp flicks of her hand.  _I knew I couldn’t let that happen.  I didn’t know what to do.  I came home and talked to Giles, asked him to help me._

And there it is, thinks Zelda.  Giles and not her.  Ice grips her heart, stealing the warmth from her chest. 

_And when he said no, I felt so alone.  But I knew I had to do it anyway.  I had to do it on my own._

Zelda tries to find the breath to ask a question.  Not the question.  A new question, prompted by this amazing revelation.  “Giles said no?  He said no and you were going to do it on your own?”

Elisa nods.  Simply.  Profoundly.  She had been ready to wade into this battle, on her own.

Zelda must pick only one of so many thoughts to follow up on.  “Why did Giles say no?”

Elisa sits farther back into her corner of the couch, scrubs at her nose again with the crumpled tissue.

_He said it was against the law.  He said that it didn’t matter if the creature was alone or lonely, that we all are alone._

Elisa’s chin comes up again.  Her lips pull thin. _He said we can do nothing about it, because we are nothing.  Nothing.  Powerless.  Voiceless.  And then he said that it wasn’t even human.  And then he left.  And I started to plan how to do it on my own._  

Her chin lifts even higher.  She looks at Zelda, looks right into Zelda, into her heart, into her soul. 

_Because we are not powerless.  None of us.  We matter.  We all matter.  We all deserve freedom and a voice.  Especially people who others don’t see as human._

Zelda is stunned into silence by the strength of this pronouncement.  When she can think again, she thinks, how have I known this woman all these years and not truly known her, not truly seen her for the miracle she is? 

And Zelda feels ashamed, that her own thoughts had ever wandered to the consideration, however briefly, of whether the color of her skin had anything to do with Elisa shutting her out.  Because clearly it hadn’t.

Zelda should have remembered that Elisa, her friend, has never seen her color or anyone’s in the course of their long friendship.  That Elisa sees only a person’s heart, a person’s soul. 

She should have taken to heart the lesson from Elisa that souls don’t have a color, that souls don’t have disabilities, that souls don’t need to fear to love who they choose.  Zelda can scarcely believe that she is learning from Elisa, right this moment, that souls don’t even have to look human.  That God isn’t that small.  That God alone decides what shape a soul will wear.

Zelda feels, for the first time in days, free.  She knows now that she can ask Elisa the question that has been plaguing her, that Elisa will answer, that their friendship will withstand this.  She knows she can ask that question, but she asks another first.

“What happened, honey?  What made Giles change his mind?”  Zelda looks around Giles’ apartment, Elisa’s second home, full of life and light and creativity.  

Zelda and Elisa and Giles have been friends for a long time.  Elisa, of course, is the center, who brought them together out of their love for her, their mutual desire to help ease her way through the difficulties the world can present for her.  They have shared many meals, many talks, many wine fueled confidences, here in this apartment, home to a man of such talent, such heart, who yearns most of all to share everything he is with someone he can love, truly, openly, honestly.  They have shared words and feelings that have, over time, made Zelda question things she has been taught and things she has been told to believe.  As a person striving not to be defined by prejudice, she has sought not to define others that way and has found her life richer for it, richer for having Elisa’s and Giles’ friendship.      

Zelda finds the oldest, most deeply buried anger within her change, turn to sorrow as she realizes she lives in a world where some people have made God so small, so hateful.  A world where Giles even trying to reach out to someone he would want to share his life with is criminal.  A world where people would judge Giles for his heart’s desire, as people judge her for the color of her skin or judge Elisa because she cannot speak.  Each of them, people who some other people don’t see as human, don’t see as souls made by a loving God.  And with that, Zelda finds the answer to her own question and wonders what it will mean for Elisa in the future. 

Her attention comes back to Elisa, who ponders her own answer.

_He told me that, when I asked him to help, he felt powerless. That forces beyond his control decided for him.  And then something made him want to decide for himself.  He changed his mind.  He told me, whatever this creature was, that he could see that I needed it._   Elisa smiles ruefully.  _And later he told me that he knew I would try it myself if he didn’t help and he couldn’t let me do that.  And he was right._  

Zelda smiles, never letting on to the fear that grips her at that statement.  The thought of what would have happened to Elisa on her own…  The thought of losing her finally coaxes forth the subject she has been avoiding.  She closes her eyes again.  Composes her thoughts.  And opens them, to speak to Elisa from her heart.

“When I came up here I was angry.  Angry and hurt.  I want you to know I don’t feel that way now.”

Elisa nods solemnly, sits straighter.

“But I do need to know, to hear from you… Elisa, why didn’t you tell me what was going on?  Why did you shut me out?”  Zelda pauses.  But this moment demands the whole truth.  “Why did you feel you could ask Giles for help, and not me?”

Tears prick Elisa’s eyes again.  Her face reveals a war between tenderness, amusement and exasperation.  _Because you have so much more to lose than Giles or me.  You have a home, a husband, family, neighbors, church friends.  I couldn’t let you risk all that._

“You didn’t tell me, because you cared about me?”  Of all the reasons Zelda has tormented herself with, this simple one had not once occurred to her.

That solemn nod again. And then, because she is Elisa, her mouth quirks into a bittersweet smile as she adds, _And we are best friends and I value your opinion.  And you would have tried to talk me out of it, out of all of it.  And I couldn’t let myself be talked out of it._ The smile disappears. _Because he would die.  And I could not let him die. I didn’t want to tell anybody, involve anybody.  But I needed to save him.  I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to help him._

Zelda is realizing just how deep Elisa’s feelings for this creature run.  And she feels her own pang of bittersweet.  Because Elisa must know, that in saving him, she must lose him.  He cannot survive here.  He must be set free, returned to wherever he had come from. 

Elisa pulls her from her dark musings.  She is smiling again, a little lopsided, but smiling _.  You know, you helped me even though I didn’t tell you.  You came to look for me because you cared, even when you were hurt and angry._

“I didn’t have a choice.”  Zelda softens the statement with a gentle smile of her own.

_Yes you did.  Everyone does.  We all do.  Every day.  We just don’t always make the right ones.  Like you did.  I can’t thank you enough._ Elisa reaches out, touches her hand briefly.   _I am sorry.  I never meant for you to be involved.  And you could have run, then.  Run from the dock.  But you stayed._   Elisa looks like she is about to cry again. 

Zelda can’t help herself.  “And I punched your time card out on time, so no one would know you were there past your shift.  And I cleaned out your locker, in case they order a search of the complex.  Be kind of hard to explain how you went home without your clothes and your purse.  With your keys in it.”

Elisa’s eyes go wide.  _I never thought of that, of either of those things!  Oh, Zelda, I can never repay you, for that or for hurting your feelings so badly!  I missed you so much!_ She scoots forward, into another hug.

Zelda holds her close, murmurs into her hair, “I missed you too, honey.”

Their tender moment is broken by Giles, leaning in the door.  “Are you ladies about done in there?  Because I really need to use the facilities.  And those at Elisa’s are rather occupied right now.”

 

 

 

 


	3. Tribute

Zelda and Elisa move from the couch, cats scattering out of their way, not into the hallway, thankfully, but vanishing behind the heaps of art materials mounded throughout Giles’ apartment.  The big orange and white cat, Zelda notes as they stand and stretch their legs, has at some time during her conversation with Elisa made his way onto a comfy reading chair in a far corner nook located behind Giles’ large drafting table.  The charcoal sketches of the creature taped there remind her-- there is more to be faced and overcome yet this morning.

Elisa steps lightly to the doorway of her apartment, where she signs to Zelda that she wants to wait for Giles to join them.  Zelda is glad for a slight respite.  After having seen people the likes of Elisa, Giles and Dr. Hoffstetler move heaven and earth for this creature, she suddenly feels herself unprepared for what she might find.  The memory of the bloody lab and the gruesome fingers is at odds with everything Elisa has told her today, but she finds it still in her mind as she prepares to step through the door.  She tries to remember instead the feeling of the wondrously strange experience on the dock, the sense of peace, the awe and fascination on the faces of everyone beholding the calm, curious and compelling being who had brought them all together. 

Zelda peers over Elisa’s head, able to make out the overlarge bathtub through the open bathroom door.  A shower curtain pushed to the left covers part of the tub.  The water within looks dark and still.  She had seen the pool in the lab; the water in the tub looks the same, the surface covered with a thin layer of plant material that obscures what lies beneath.

Giles appears behind them, pulling his own apartment door quietly closed.  “Shall we?” he asks, and Elisa turns a sunny smile his way.  “He’s been asleep this whole time.  It’s like he somehow knows you’re still here; he didn’t wake up the way he did both times you stepped out for groceries earlier.”

Zelda steps through the door behind Elisa, with Giles bringing up the rear and softly closing this door, too.  Zelda is faintly amazed.  How can Elisa’s apartment look so unchanged, holding the great secret that it does?  Light and sound still filter through the floor from the theater below, not nearly as noticeable over at Giles’ apartment.  The walls and floors still show the heavy water damage from some long ago calamity. Elisa spends the money she saves on the discounted rent on making the place as charming as she can.  That and shoes.

The kitchen is still on the small side, though Elisa makes do.  Salt canisters form a wall on the near side of the counter, hiding the view of the stove, though Zelda can hear a pot of something bubbling away.  The green dining table holds a large bowl of fresh fruit, mostly apples with a few pears adding variety.  There is a vase next to it, filled with flowers, a mix of daisies, carnations and shortish snapdragons.  Dragon flowers, Zelda’s daddy had used to say.  The carnations are white, the daisies and snapdragons a mixture of white and pale yellow.

The flowers bring a green freshness to the air, as does, no doubt, the plant life floating on the bathwater.  Elisa must have gone out to the fall farmers’ market.  Zelda knows that there’s at least one greenhouse flower vendor there, oh, yes, and eggs.  Elisa had said the creature ate eggs, and that market always had the best price on eggs.   

To the left of the open floor space are the matching couch and chair that Zelda has always envied, carved wood and taut upholstery in watery blue hues.  There’s a rug that provides respite from the cracks between the floorboards so hungry for the heels of women’s shoes.  The bed that takes up the back wall is made up with lovely linens.  Zelda knows Elisa seldom uses it, preferring the couch for sleeping.   But despite these details, pleasing to the eye, Zelda’s attention is captivated by the full view of the bathroom now on display.

The tub always amazes her when she sees it.  The tub is huge.  Elisa had told her that some one or other of the landlord’s relatives had turned this upstairs area into apartments, keeping one for himself.  He had been a large man who liked a good soak, and he had installed an extra large bathtub to guarantee it.  There is another bowl of fruit down on the floor, next to the shower curtain, and an enormous bucket full of the flowers, tall white and yellow snapdragons, white ruffled carnations filling in the middle, bunches of yellow and white daisies below.

The water in the tub is not completely still, she sees.  There’s a small roil of bubbles at the left end of the tub, away from the faucet and shower fixture to the right, coming at regular, even intervals.  Almost as if something is breathing under that coverlet of algae, breathing deeply and slow.  Zelda feels more than a little faint when she remembers that something is breathing, there, underwater.  The creature.  The fishman.  He is really here, in Elisa’s bathtub, and fast asleep. 

Zelda needs to sit down.  Right now. 

Giles is making his way into the kitchen, to check the boiling pot.  Elisa is transfixed near the doorway, her hands on the jamb, her cheek resting against her fingers as she, too, gazes in fascination at the bathtub tableau.  Giles’ voice rumbles her to life.  “Elisa, would our guest care for some coffee?”

Elisa steps to the table and pulls out a chair, the end chair with the best view out the arched window, and, Zelda notes in minor dismay, the closest to the bathroom.  It would be rude not to sit. She does, angling the chair so she can keep an eye on the bathroom doorway.  Elisa continues into the kitchen to help Giles, who emerges with two cups of coffee.  He places one before Zelda and takes the chair closest to the kitchen for himself.  Elisa brings small plates and cutlery to the table, signing after she sets them down that they are for fruit, or bread, if Zelda would like any.

_There’s eggs boiling for the creature, and enough to make us egg salad sandwiches,_ she signs and Zelda nods her agreement with this meal plan.  Zelda is almost afraid to speak, as if the sound of her voice, unfamiliar to the creature, might wake him from his sleep.  Giles is eyeing her with a challenging little grin over the rim of his coffee cup, as though reading her thoughts.  Zelda tries some words.

“What’s with all the flowers?  And the fruit?”  She checks; no stirrings from the bathtub.

Elisa’s hands are busy with plates and bread.  Giles answers.  “Well, when we got him up here and got him settled—and that was an adventure I’ll let Elisa tell you later, suffice to say he had a little problem breathing the water here at first, scared the life out of us—he was hungry.  Very hungry.  Elisa had only a few hardboiled eggs, which he ate very quickly.  As in one bite, one egg.  Elisa was told he eats only protein.  So imagine our surprise when he went for the three apples Elisa had on hand.  Bites them clean and I mean clean in half.  He ate all three.  So Elisa decided, after her first trip to the market for salt and more salt—needs it for the bathwater, you see-- to do a second run for more eggs and why not get some more fruit?  She brought the flowers too, to cheer him up, make it feel more outdoorsy in here.  He surprised us again by having a taste for those, too.”

Elisa joins them at the table, sets down a cup of coffee while she waits for the eggs to cool.  _I made sure to get non-poisonous flowers, just to be safe, but I didn’t really expect him to eat them at all!  I put the fruit and the flowers in the bathroom too in case he gets hungry but doesn’t want to get up.  He’s exhausted.  I hate to think of him cramped in that tub, but at least he’s got that collar and chains off._ She heads into the kitchen again.

Zelda tries another question.  “You call him the creature?  Did you give him a name or does he have one of his own?”

Giles answers again.  “Elisa says if he has a name, maybe someday he’ll tell us.”

Elisa signs from the kitchen, earnestly, explaining, not condemning.  _It’s not for us to name him.  He’s not an animal.  Not a pet.  Not an owned thing._

Zelda ponders that, over coffee.  She wonders when the creature will wake up.  She wonders if she’ll be ready.  She knows the answer to that one.  She’ll never be ready.  Giles seems so comfortable, and he just met the creature.  Again, he seems to read her mind.

“Elisa told me a lot about him, beforehand.  Once I came to my senses that is, and agreed to help her.”  He looks down, subdued.  “Once I remembered that our friendship has always been unconditional.” 

Zelda nods, reaches out, pats his hand.  He gives her a weary smile.  She is suddenly reminded that Giles is not young; he’s old enough to be her father.  She hopes this stress is not too hard on him.

Elisa appears at the table, placing an egg on the small plate by her chair near the window.  _He is going to wake up soon.  Are you ready?_

Zelda frowns.  Just how deep was the connection between the two of them?  “How do you know that?”

Elisa smiles.  _Because I have to peel the eggs for the sandwiches._   With that, she takes her spoon, and taps crisply on the shell of the egg now in her hand.

Zelda’s attention snaps back to the bathroom as she hears the sound of water sloshing.  Two knees appear, one after the other.  Despite the size of the tub, to be fully underwater the creature must have to fold and twist his limbs.  The knees subside as the creature sits up.  He looks right at her, his eyes wide.  Zelda imagines her eyes look much the same.  She can’t move.  He is right there.  She thinks of Strickland’s fingers and the creature snapping an apple in half with one bite.

Elisa steps quickly through the door.  The creature’s attention focuses solely on Elisa, and he makes a soft sound of welcome. 

Zelda watches in amazement as his huge webbed hand emerges from the water, Elisa stretching her own out in greeting.  His hand completely and gently engulfs hers.  He comes to his knees in a fluid inhuman movement then rises, keeping her hand in his the entire time.  Elisa tilts her head, her smile only growing brighter as he looms larger and larger above her.  Zelda is aware that Giles has come to stand behind her.  She turns for a glimpse of his face.  The awe she saw on the dock is unchanged. 

In the bathroom, the creature moves to step out of the tub.  Easing her hand out of his, Elisa signs, _Wait.  Please._

Giles softly supplies, “She taught him that earlier today.  To keep him safe here, from things that could hurt him.”

The creature goes still as Elisa leans to adjust the handheld shower fixture, then slips off her shoes and steps up onto the side of the tub.  The creature steadies her with his left hand on her right shoulder.  The shower fixture is running.  Elisa plays it over him, rinsing bits of algae off him, Zelda realizes, then loses the thought as his huge golden eyes are shuttered, with lids that flick across from the sides. 

Then his eyes close in a more human fashion, from the top down, revealing lids tinted the same dazzling blue as the markings that adorn his forehead.  Stripes of the same hot blue are vivid against the dark scaled flesh of his arms and legs.  When he turns to face Zelda completely, tipping his face up as if enjoying the water streaming down his body, she notes that in addition to his face and chest, the inside of his arms and legs are also a shaded sepia tone. 

His chest seems almost human but quickly passes into “other” as her gaze moves down rippling lines of parallel plates, broad at the top of his abdomen, narrowing as they approach the junction of his legs.  She can’t help herself.  Her eyes flick down.  But the creature, for all his masculine breadth of shoulder, the muscled arms and powerful legs, is resolutely neutral below, nothing resembling anything so indiscrete as genitalia apparent.  Well, so sue me, thinks Zelda.  He may not be human, but I am.    

He completes the revolution, his back now to Zelda, and just a flick of a glance is out of the question.  She frankly stares.  Not, as one might expect, at the alien oddity of the spiny ridge down the middle of his upper back, or at the rhythmic motion of the lacy gills on each side of his head.  Her attention is drawn again, as it had been on the dock, to a more common sight. More common only in that it was by far his most human attribute.  There was nothing common about his backside, its sculpted and shapely perfection. 

He finishes his pirouette, facing Elisa again.  She steps down from the tub, right hand in his left, as he steps his right foot, a massive clawed thing, onto the edge of the tub.  He waits, a statue, as she rinses his leg off, then steps it fully out of the tub and brings his other foot to the edge for Elisa to repeat the process.  Elisa turns off the shower, stows it away.  He stands, watching her, water tracing a clean glistening path from his head to his clawed toes.  Elisa turns, and the smile they share… Zelda has no words.  She wasn’t imagining things on the dock earlier today.  It wasn’t a hallucination brought on by the extreme terror of the moment her world changed forever.  The fishman, when she has put aside her fear, and has gotten past his strangeness, truly is beautiful, and the way he is with Elisa is something marvelous to see.  She hears Giles sigh behind her. 

Elisa signs to them both as the creature stands tall beside her, _There.  Ready for lunch._

The creature’s attention has shifted to Zelda now, as in two strides he is through the door and approaching the table.  Almost as if he senses how overwhelmingly tall he seems to Zelda, seated as she is, he drops gracefully into a squat, while reaching for her hand.  The low wet rumbles from deep within his chest are supplanted by a higher, trilling sound.  Elisa signs again to him, _Wait. Please._ He stops his reach, looking to Elisa.

Elisa signs to her, _I think he wants to touch your hand.  Are you okay with that?_

Elisa must see her nod.  Zelda doesn’t really know if she nodded or not.  She becomes aware she is stretching out her hand to him, as though he might kiss the back of it with his lips.  He stretches his right arm, palm down, toward her, as he uses his other hand to point from his arm to hers.  Back again, his finger hovering over his arm, then hers.  He looks at each of their faces in turn, as if wondering when they will catch on.

Of course it is Giles the artist who understands first.  “Color!  Forgive me, Zelda, but I think he is excited because you are the closest of us to his primary coloration.” 

Zelda peers at his arm.  Between the vivid blue stripes, the skin on his arm is a smoky true black, deeper than her soft brown skin.  But looking from pale Giles, who surely had reddish hair as a younger man, to the pure porcelain of Elisa’s complexion, she kind of gets it.  She is the closest to his color.  The thought tickles her, and she laughs.  He rises then, as Elisa leads him around the table to the open seat facing the kitchen.  And Zelda is lost again in the incongruity of it all, first a fishman in the bathtub, and now sitting big as life at the kitchen table.

Elisa heads to the kitchen, snatching the half-shelled egg off her plate, and sets to work on the rest of the them.  Giles joins them at the table, smiling in delight at Zelda. The creature turns his attention to Zelda again, pointing at her, then extending his right arm at an angle to the window.  Giles and Zelda exchange glances.  Giles calls to Elisa, “Watch.  What do you think this means?”

The creature repeats.  Points to Zelda, points to the window, his arm at the same angle as before.  Elisa taps her foot to draw their attention to her.  _Occam_ , she signs.  _That’s the direction Occam is in.  I think he’s saying he saw Zelda at Occam._   She comes to stand by Zelda, signing, _Yes.  She and I, together there,_ there being the same point in Occam’s direction.  The creature gives a bob of the head.  He has been understood.  He makes soft chirping sounds, seeming content.

Elisa steps back to the kitchen, returning with a full plate of hardboiled eggs, which she sets before the delighted creature.  _Zelda,_ she signs, _are you okay if he starts eating before us, while I make the sandwiches?  He’s very hungry and I hate to make him wait._

Zelda says, “I know never to stand between a man and his food.  That’s fine with me.”

Elisa nods at the creature, who is watching her closely.  His eyes follow her as she turns to the counter again, to finish preparing the sandwiches.  Something in his face, Zelda thinks, makes him look confused.  A subtle opening of his eyes.  The colors on his forehead, shifting as though his brow is wrinkling.  His mouth slightly open.  He looks at the plate of eggs, then at their empty plates, then back again to his own.

Giles urges him, speaking and signing simultaneously, _It’s okay!  Go ahead, eat._

The creature looks at Giles, then reaches his hand to the plate of eggs.  His hand is so big it covers almost the entire plate.  Zelda watches as his hand comes away, his arm stretching across to Giles’ plate.  His hand opens, withdraws.  Three eggs now rest on Giles’ plate.  Before anybody can react, the creature repeats the action, this time ending with three eggs on Zelda’s plate.  Zelda meets Giles’ incredulous gaze with a stunned shake of her head. 

“Elisa,” Giles says.  “You should see this.”  Elisa turns from the counter in time to see the creature place three eggs on her own plate.  Zelda cannot believe what she is seeing.  The creature’s plate, now revealed, holds four eggs.  With a quick look at each of the three people watching him, he ducks his head almost shyly as he picks up the “extra” egg and places it, carefully, on Elisa’s plate.

“Well,” Giles says.  “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a clear favorite.”  He casts a fond look over his shoulder at Elisa, who covers her mouth with her hand.  “Can you believe that, any of it?  I know, I know, you told me he was smart, but this, well…”  Giles shakes his head wonderingly.

Elisa breaks the spell by bringing each of them, except the creature, a plate with an egg salad sandwich.  As she sets each sandwich down, she removes the plate of eggs and adds them back to the plate in front of the creature.  Far from looking sorrowful that his gesture has not been accepted, at her nod, he eagerly begins popping eggs into his mouth, casting curious glances at the sandwiches.  Elisa obliges by giving him half a sandwich of his own, which he inspects with a sniff and a lick, then eats in two bites.  Elisa piles apples from the fruit bowl onto his plate and the three of them converse as they eat their meal, punctuated by crisp snaps as the creature bites apples in half, one by one.

Over the meal, Zelda finds a moment to ask what she had refrained from asking over at Giles’ place.  What does Elisa intend to do, how will they release the creature?  They tell her of his limitations, how he can only be out of the water for so long.  They couldn’t drive to the ocean or the river, not with Occam security potentially on their trail, not with the time ticking away to get him into the water.  And not in his present debilitated condition.  Zelda nods.  They don’t have to speak again of the horrors the creature has endured.

Elisa goes quiet at this point, from the horrors of the past and the sorrow yet to come, Zelda is sure.  Zelda can see she doesn’t want to talk about releasing the creature.  Giles fills the silence.  The plan, he says, is to keep him here, at Elisa’s, until the rains come to fill the canal that runs to the bay, so near to the theater.  He should easily be able to make the trip there, and make his way out to sea, and hopefully south, towards his home in the Amazon.  By then, the search for him may have calmed.  It will give the creature time to regain as much strength as he can.  Elisa and Zelda will have been back to Occam, listening for useful information.  The enigmatic Hoffstetler will either contact them or ignore them, or may be gone soon, since he had come to Occam solely for the duration of this project.  

Zelda looks to her right, where “this project” is happily eating apples, along with the occasional daisy. She sees Elisa cheer up at the sight, the smile returning to her face, the words to her fingers.

The most extraordinary meal Zelda has ever eaten concludes, with Elisa motioning the creature up from his chair.  She’s right.  There’s a bit of rasp to his breathing.  His vibrant colors look duller, his fins a bit droopy.  Time for him to head back into the tub. 

Elisa accompanies him.  She seats herself on the side of the tub.  Zelda watches as he steps in, sits, slides his head below the surface in a gout of bubbles.  His face remains above the water, his eyes on Elisa, his hand touching her fingers where they rest on the tub’s edge.  Zelda feels that he doesn’t want to leave her, even for air, even for sleep.  Elisa reaches a hand to his cheek, nodding gently, and he lets his head submerge completely.  Elisa stands, and his folded legs twist to the side, and disappear below the water.  The algae on the water’s surface settle into opaque stillness.  It’s the algae, Zelda realizes.  Of course he can see underwater, but the algae blocks his view…of her.

The trio move into the living room for some after meal relaxation time, to let their thoughts and stomachs rest.  Giles takes the single chair.  Elisa and Zelda each settle into a corner of the couch, Elisa in the far corner, Zelda at the end closest to Giles.  Elisa and Zelda share a smile as they realize how their positions duplicate those of their earlier conversation, in Giles’ apartment, that had been so fruitful. 

Zelda still covets this couch.  Not to take it away from Elisa.  Zelda just wishes she could find one exactly like it, for her very own.  She has nothing so elegant, so refined.  A couch like this could make you redo your whole house, just so everything else would match it in elegance.  No Barcaloungers allowed. 

Zelda, who after the events of the morning, thought she’d never relax again in her life, finds herself unwinding.  The tension ramps up a bit again as they begin discussing what might be happening at Occam, and whether they truly will get away with it all.  Zelda agrees that she and Elisa just need to go to work as usual, keep their heads down and their ears open.  A nice, normal, unremarkable routine.

Giles states that the van won’t be an issue.  The plates were fake, and the van is hidden in a small garage behind the theater that the landlord lets him use.  For whatever reason, the military police at Occam hadn’t seemed to scramble into vehicles to come after them.  Probably because Occam is situated very close to a nexus of highways.  By the time they’d tried to follow, their quarry could be headed in any direction but east into the ocean on a number of roads.

Giles and Elisa discuss plans for Giles to watch the creature when Elisa goes to work.  Zelda can feel herself getting drowsy.  Her eyes soon shut, and she loses Elisa’s half of the conversation.  Giles’ soothing baritone soon fades away too.

Her thoughts drift, idly and oddly to her father.  Of him speaking about the nature of anger, how it could lead to hatred.  Why that was such an easy trap to fall into, and why it must be avoided.  Why she must cultivate calm. 

_Zelda,_ he would say, _we exist in a world where you will see things and be subject to things that will send you into a blaze of anger, and you must not do that, must not go that route.  Don’t let anger close doors of your heart that need to remain open to let the truth in.   None of us can afford anger, because it can be so easily used against us.  Either against us as individuals, or against us as a race of people.  This is a world and a time where the mob can rule, and turn on you, and string you up from a tree faster than the police can stop them, if the police are so inclined.  We just have to bide our time, and be patient, and trust in the Lord that wrongs will be righted.  That people will see that underneath the skin, all our blood runs red, that we are all children of God, made in his image, which is of the soul and not the body.  And pray that in our time on this earth, we will make the acquaintance of people of good moral character, of kindness and compassion, who will stand shoulder to shoulder with us during times of trial._

People like Elisa, like Giles, Zelda thinks.  And the creature, a God-forged soul as well.  Older than all of them, maybe.  Than humankind.   Water was here long before land, water with the spirit of God moving upon the face of it.  The Lord made man on the sixth day. But on the fifth day, He told the waters to bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.  The creature was here first, he and his kind, if there are more, if he is not alone under the seas and rivers.  She thinks of the chains and the torture he has endured, his times of trial.  She understands why his hand had struck the glass on that first day at Occam, when he saw Elisa.  Not in rage or hatred.  It was a plea, for help.  For release from bondage.  And her gentle friend had heard, with her open heart, heard and helped.

_This world in which we live, and these times in which we find ourselves can lead us into hatred of those who we see as our persecutors,_ her father would continue.  _But before you turn to hatred of one group, let that anger consume you, you must realize that humanity itself, as a whole, is capable of sin.  That we are all undeserving of the grace of God which has been bestowed upon us, and it is exactly this that makes us need it so desperately.  Because we as human beings are capable both of sublime divinity and savagery beyond_ _what the devil himself doles out.  Reject that savagery.  Take the grace. Don’t let anger turn you to the ways of your persecutors, the hatred and the fear.  Strive for calm.  Feed the divinity within yourself, by your thoughts and by your choice of companions in this world…_

Her father, urging her to calmness.  Calmness that served her well every time she mustered the discipline to use it.  It isn’t easy, that’s for sure.  This world doesn’t make it easy.  But it had served her this morning, guiding her safely out of Occam, getting her here to make things right with Elisa, to come to know the creature, the source of these troubled times.  No, not the creature, she thinks.  Strickland and others like Strickland who took that being from his home, brought him here in that glass tank, put him in that pool as though a creature who’d had the run of rivers and oceans wouldn’t know the difference.

Zelda is like the creature, she thinks in her drowsy haze.  In a bubble that is Occam.   It had been a long and hard-fought battle, but she is a queen there, listened to and respected by her co-workers.  Oh, sure, there are the Yolandas of the world, who pester and annoy, but when push comes to shove, they know who will win, who always wins—Zelda.

But that respect, Zelda sees now, is just an illusion.  Like being in a jail cell with walls just a little bit wider than your arms can touch.  Close your eyes, twirl around, and you have all the space in the world.  But move just a little bit too far to one side and whack!  Your hand hits that wall, your eyes fly open and you realize just how small of a space you are in.  Kept there by people who can do anything with you, anything to you, at any time.  It’s enough to teach even people with a temper to bottle it up, keep cool, keep as calm as you can at all times.  You can let that temper out only with people you trust.

And that is the real hell of it.  Because that constant knowledge of how powerless they keep you makes you start to rank people in your own head.  Who do I have power over?  Who has power over me?  Who can I let that temper flash at without fear of repercussion, and who do I have to duck my head to and say yes sir, sorry sir.  How does a person keep their self-respect, doing that to other people, having it done to them?  How does a person keep from losing their way, from losing their damn mind?

Zelda thinks, she has an advantage over the creature, who doesn’t know the rules, who is a wild thing, elemental, with a need for freedom that can’t be controlled or beaten out of him.  No wonder he drives Strickland crazy, Strickland who is all about control.

Her thoughts flow in a different direction.  The creature is like Elisa.  With the energy and enthusiasm of the young and innocent, yet somehow an old and wise soul at the same time.  Maybe it’s because of his endless fascination with the world around him, despite how cruelly he has been treated.  Like Elisa, who never gives up on the good in the world, on the beauty in the world.  Who believes no one is truly powerless, that everyone deserves freedom and a voice, and a chance to do the right thing.  That everyone matters.  Everyone, even people not everyone sees as human.

Zelda rouses to some small sound.  Water, moving to fill in a space that is now empty.  It takes her awhile to come fully awake.  She blinks her eyes open.  Giles is asleep in the chair.  Elisa has pulled her feet up and dozes with her head nestled against the back of the couch.  Zelda’s eyes find the bathroom doorway.  The creature stands there, his hands on the door jamb, head leaned against them, his eyes on Elisa as he waits for her to wake, a mirror image of Elisa’s stance earlier in the apartment doorway, as she waited and watched for him.  As if his subtle energy pervades the room, Elisa and Giles blink and stir, sign and murmur sheepish hellos, to each other, to her and to the creature.

The creature, all right with his world now that Elisa is awake, backs into the bathroom, then returns, stepping out to join them.  In one arm, he carries the bowl of fruit.  In the other, the silver bucket very full of flowers.  His markings glimmer in the late morning sun.  He crouches to the floor, sets the bowl and bucket down outside the bathroom doorway.  Elisa and Giles and Zelda exchange a look.  From Elisa’s face, Zelda can tell that this is new to her, that she has no idea what to expect. 

The creature plucks an apple from the bowl with one hand, a few stems of flowers with the other.  He approaches Giles, alone in the chair.  The creature crouches, then kneels before him.  Lays the flowers and fruit at his feet.  The creature raises his hand to his own head, taps the top of it, looks back at Elisa.

Elisa signs, eyes wide, _That is his sign for you, Giles._

Zelda huffs a small laugh.  Of course.  Bald means Giles. 

The creature motions to himself, then to Giles, then to Occam.  Then, the order reversed, he points to Giles, then himself, then gestures to the room around them.  He gazes at Giles, emits a chuffing sound.  The meaning is clear.  Giles was there at Occam.  Giles helped bring him here.

The creature bows his head and rests it on Giles’ feet.  Giles takes his glasses off, wipes his eyes, speechless as Zelda has never seen him.  Puts his glasses back on.  Looks to Elisa.  Elisa has tears in her eyes.  So does Zelda.

Elisa signs, _I heard, in the lab--they said that in the Amazon, the creature was worshipped as a god.  That the native people there would bring fruits and flowers as their gifts to him._

Giles taps the creature lightly on the shoulder, smiles gently into his upturned face.  The creature stands, moves to the flower bucket and fruit bowl again.  Even though Zelda is prepared, she still chokes back a sob when he places flowers and fruit at her feet.  He touches the back of his wrist, looks to Elisa.

Elisa signs, _That must be his sign for you, Zelda._

Zelda thinks, black, that’s me alright.

The ritual is repeated, the tale of how she helped him told.  The creature chuffs, gazing at her with his gold and black patterned eyes.  His head touches her feet.  Water droplets roll from his head, across the tops of her feet, down into her shoes.  No foot bath has ever felt as refreshing.  She looks at him, drinking in all his different colors, black, ivory, blue, coral, gold, hues that dim and brighten and change with every breath he takes, every pulse of his blood beneath his skin, shading and highlighting his strange beauty.  She touches him gently on the shoulder.  The scales are smooth, silken.

With a look to her, he unfolds and rises.  Steps to the flower bucket.  His huge hands enfold the stems of all the remaining flowers.  They make an armful even for him.  No one breathes as he approaches Elisa and lays all the flowers at her feet.  Her eyes, only for him, are shining with more than the tears which roll down her cheeks.  He breaks the ritual to wipe her tears gently away with a careful finger.

He crosses to the bowl of fruit, a study in grace as he walks.  Picks up the bowl and brings it to Elisa, where he kneels and sets it with care at her feet, nestled to the side of the flowers.  He chooses an apple, places it in her lap, where it rests, a gleam of red in the dark folds of her skirt.  He sits back on his heels.  His face is soft, his parted lips moving into the slightest of smiles. Elisa can’t seem to help herself, reaching to softly caress his cheek.

Zelda has a moment to wonder what his sign for her will be.  Astonishment piles upon astonishment, as he signs, slowly, carefully, treasuring each letter, _E-L-I-S-A._ Elisa is smiling through her tears, hands curled loosely over her heart, as if to hold it inside her chest. It is clear to Zelda, and as she looks briefly to Giles, to him as well, that Elisa’s heart is no longer just her own.  She shares it now with this creature who kneels before her in the purest of adoration.

Zelda thinks again, looking at the two lost in each other, the thought haunting her, Elisa knows she must let him go sometime.  Zelda knows that Elisa will find the strength to do it, to do what’s best for him.  Elisa’s heart, she knows, is that big.  When the time is right, she will let him go, where he can be free.  How she will endure it, when she already seems bound to him, heart to heart, soul to soul, is beyond Zelda’s comprehension.  Some things, like her daddy would say, are better left to God to handle.  But Zelda will be there, shoulder to shoulder with Elisa, as will Giles.  Repaying her friendship as best they can, supporting her through that dark time to come.

The spell does not break, merely expands as the creature motions to himself, to Elisa, to Occam.  Then points to Elisa, his palm opening to her, his hand lingering in the air, then to himself, and then a sweeping arc of his arm to the space around them, shaping a world that only the two of them seem to share.  His head sinks slowly to pillow itself upon her feet, his gaze upon her face until he must let his eyes turn to the floor, his entire body bent double in supple and profound genuflection.  Elisa places her hands on his head, and bows her own head over his.  Her tears rain down on his scales and they shine more brightly for it.  The lights from the theater below, sifting through the floorboards, cast a soft glow around them. They stay that way a long time.

Elisa at last raises her head and the creature follows suit.  Her hands find his. Their eyes lock.  Elisa’s lips tremble in a smile.  The creature seems content to kneel at her feet and look at her forever.

Zelda had told Strickland once that she didn’t know what God looks like.

She knows now that God doesn’t look like Strickland or Fleming.

He doesn’t look like her or Brewster.

Or Giles or Yolanda or even Elisa.

God looks like this feeling, which sings between Elisa and the creature.

The morning stretches out as the sun streams in. 

Zelda knows the creature is going nowhere until he will be almost unable to breathe.

She leans back on the couch, resting her head.  She’s tired.  Her feet hurt.  She wonders when Elisa will serve up that fish that Zelda dragged halfway around Baltimore this morning.  Maybe dinner.  Maybe around 5.  A celebration at 5 sounds about right, to clear away thoughts of what was slated to happen at that time today.  Maybe she’ll join them.  She’s in no hurry to walk down that long flight of steps. 

Next to her in his chair, Giles is of the same mind.  He leans his head back, but continues to watch Elisa and the creature, rapt and serene, through fond eyes that shine with tears.

Zelda has seen Elisa change the world, at least for a little while.  Tomorrow, the world could change again.  There’s no telling what will happen.  What the mystery surrounding Dr. Hoffstetler will mean.  What Strickland will ask and when.  If that general will put in another appearance. 

Zelda has no doubt that the fear of being found out, being caught somehow, will arise in her brain when she and Elisa head into Occam, as today turns into tomorrow.  She’ll snap at Elisa and Elisa will take it, know it comes from concern.  She’ll blame Elisa, though Zelda had every chance not to be involved, and Elisa will smile, remembering their talk at Giles’ place. Zelda will search for calm and it will be elusive.  That’s just the way it is, sometimes.  They just have to wait and see how this all plays out. Keep their eyes open.  Keep the faith.  If they were sure of how things would turn out, why then, there’d be no need for faith, would there?  Faith may waver, but like her daddy told her, it endures.

Right now, though, despite uncertainties, she remembers the many revelations of today and feels small, but in a good way.  Small like she’s aware of things greater than herself.  Small but not insignificant.

Like the world is full of possibilities.  Like everything she thought she knew should be reexamined in a new light.

Maybe a little later.  She’s going to catch a nap first. 

After all, she’s earned it.

They all have.

 

 

 

*Fin*

 

 


End file.
